Daniel Roberts

Tell us a little about yourself.I recently moved to Tucson, Arizona. Before the move I lived in Northern California for many years. I have a lovely wife, two grown daughters and two granddaughters. I’m enjoy hiking, physical exercise, natural beauty, meditation, friends, fun, wine, my Miata-typical stuff.

What is your professional background?I practiced law in Houston for 25 years. In 1997 I started coaching and achieved the Professional Certified Coach designation. I help clients achieve their personal and professional goals. I taught a university course in Critical Thinking for several years. I also taught a monthly Wise Decisions Workshop for many years.

How did you get interested in Decision Making?My first wife died of leukemia in 1996. It was tough. And by that time I had become bored with practicing law. I felt I needed a major change in my personal and professional life. I gave the situation a lot of thought, did my due diligence and made a decision to move to California and become a coach. Brave or stupid, I don’t know. I just did it.

My decision process started me thinking about how important our decisions are and that we really don’t know very well how to make them. Also, in my coaching practice, decision making kept coming up. People often hire coaches to help them get through a major shift or change in their lives. Well, I kept getting clients that needed to think through a situation and make a major life or career decision. I could identify. Because I wanted to hone my coaching skills and just out of curiosity I began to research decision making. I read a number of books and spent a lot of time researching on the internet. It was fascinating.

What have you actually done in the Decision Making area?After getting down the basics I wanted to share. I wrote an article: “How to Make Better Decisions,” and started giving speeches to civic clubs, associations and a couple of times to conferences.

I knew about the Critical Thinking movement and,when I had a chance to go the national conference I went. That got me interested in teaching Critical Thinking because it is a necessary component of making wise decisions. I applied and was approved to teach Critical Thinking at The University of Phoenix in Northern California. I did this for several years and had a ball. In addition to the official course work, I made sure that my students learned how important decision making is and the 7 steps to making wise decisions.

Of course I continued my coaching and got better and better in guiding people through important decisions. I became interested in teaching young people decision making skills, designed a curriculum and taught decision making skills to high school students. While I lived in Northern California I presented a monthly Wise Decisions Workshop at Goodwill Industries.

Why did you create this website?I’m really passionate about teaching and helping people make better decisions. I wanted more than making presentations and teaching small groups of people how to make wise decisions. I wanted to reach more people. As I’m pretty busy with my work, the internet seemed to be the way to go.

My goal is to give visitors the nuts and bolts, the most practical advice about how to make a wise decision. I’m confident that anyone, of any level of knowledge or education, will receive value from reviewing the material on this website. As you may have observed, many apparently intelligent people in high places make dumb decisions. We can all learn.

I’m also interested in making contact with like minded people who share my interest in decision making, especially teaching decision making skills.